The present application generally relates to routing of fleets of vehicles. More particularly, the present application relates to finding traffic routes by which owners of the fleets can maximize their profits from the fleets.
Currently, when fleets of commercial vehicles in an urban area (e.g., New York City), e.g., taxies, are unoccupied by any passenger, drivers of the fleets of vehicles arbitrarily take any one of available traffic routes known to those drivers, to find potential passengers. While vehicle drivers of unoccupied vehicles (e.g., taxies with no passengers) are desirous of finding a best traffic route that can maximize their potential profits, e.g., by taking new passengers or additional passengers, there is no means available to inform the drivers of such routes where they can find potential passengers. Operating the unoccupied vehicles may reduce the profit of the owner(s) of the vehicles.
When the fleets of commercial vehicles are occupied by at least one passenger, drivers of the fleets of vehicles often arbitrarily take any one of available traffic routes known to those drivers. Due to a lack of information (e.g., real-time traffic information), the occupied vehicles (e.g., taxies with passengers) sometimes enter into a heavy traffic road even though there is an alternative traffic route that has less traffic. Sometimes, passengers get off the vehicles before the vehicle arrive at their destination locations, when the vehicles enter into heavy traffic roads. Then, the vehicles become unoccupied in a middle of the heavy traffic roads and spend their resources (e.g., fuels) without running meters. If the fleets of the vehicles enter into heavy traffic roads, profits of the owners of the fleets of the vehicles may be reduced, e.g., especially when the vehicles are operated based on flat rates (e.g., charging fees based on driving distances without a consideration of driving times) or when time is charged at a minimum per-minute rate. Passengers are also unhappy when their vehicle drivers take heavy traffic roads.
Although current path calculators (e.g., Google® Maps, Mapquest, etc.) provide traffic routing information between an origination location and a destination location, those current path calculators cannot predict travel time based on real-time traffic information. Furthermore, those path calculators fail to provide any indication of desirable routes having a potential demand (i.e., potential number of passengers) in or along a traffic route.